


Apprentice

by James9rocks



Category: The Boys (TV 2019)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:14:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 21,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27634639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/James9rocks/pseuds/James9rocks
Summary: A young man goes on to apprentice as a hero for the one and only Queen Maeve of the 7.
Kudos: 8





	1. Interview

I walked into the office to meet with the Vought representatives. Having just flown over from Texas I was both excited and terrified. Stopping right outside of the office I took a deep breath to calm down and then knocked on the door. After hearing a call to come in I stepped into the room.

I walk over and stood in front of the desk to greet the Vought representative.

"Hello, I'm James Powers. It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm here for an interview to intern and hopefully work here in the future at Vought industries."

"Uh, oh. Hello there, my name is John I will be conducting the interview for your application." He then directed me to look into camera he had on his desk. "First lets start on why you would like to work here at Vought."

"Well, ever since I was a child, I've always had the example of my father to look up to. He is a doctor you see, and he has always devoted his life to helping people. For example he gives some of his time over the weekends to performing free surgeries for those who are unable to afford them. Seeing him help so many people has inspired me to want to help other people in turn, and with the ability to control metal at my disposal, I figured, what better way is there to help people then by becoming a superhero and directly saving peoples lives."

"Ok, next I'd like to ask you..."

The interview then went on for another 15 minutes with him asking me many more questions about my life, my powers, and why I wanted to work for Vought. After the interview we both stood up and John gave me a handshake and said that they would call me back for their response.

A day later, I was laying in bed at my hotel waiting for a response from Vought after a short workout when I received a call. I quickly answered to hear the voice of John Beacons.

"Hello there this is John Beacons am I speaking to James Power."

"Yes hello there, this is James. What can I do for you?"

"Hi James, this is about the interview I had with you yesterday. I'm calling to to inform you that you have been accepted as an intern superhero here at Vought industries."

For a second I was stunned. Then I stammered a response to him.

"That's great, when and where should I go for the internship."

"I'd like you to meet me here at Vought industries headquarters tomorrow at 8:00am, where we talked yesterday. Could you meet me here then. "

"Of course, I'm looking forward to interning at Vought."

"We'll be glad to have you here. See you soon."


	2. Introduction

Oh you want to know who I am, my name is James Powers and I am a super. I'm 18 years old and just graduated from high school about a month ago. All my life I've always had a pretty awesome ability, the power to manipulate the magnetic field. What this means is I can basically control all metal. As a child I started using this power by shaking trash cans and bending silverware as a game. As I got older I started to test the limits of this ability, lifting my parents cars, and making my refrigerator float. I also started to work on the precision of my powers, unlocking doors by manipulating the metal in locks, and tightening screws when needed.

So this sums up my powers but what am I doing here. Well, I recently decided that I wanted to be a superhero. How did I make this decision do you ask? When I was younger I decided that I wanted a career where I helped people. My dad is a doctor and I have always admired how he helped people. He would give free surgeries to those who couldn't afford them and my mom, she has always been such a generous person. Every time she would pass someone asking for money she would always try and help in any way she could. These actions made me want to help people in whatever job I decided to pursue. At first I wanted to be a doctor when I was younger because my powers were pretty weak. But as I grew up and my powers became stronger I decided that the best way to help the most people would be to become a superhero.

Luckily I have had a very supportive family who have gotten me to this point. My dad has helped me get prepared for becoming a superhero. He has helped me get fit, running with me everyday, and signing me up for bazillion jujitsu to help me become skilled enough for this career. My mom and sister were also very supportive of my career choice. While they were nervous about me possibly getting hurt at first, the fact that I made a suit out of metal that would protect me from any bullets or weapons assured them of my safety.

Oh, your still wondering where I am and what I'm doing. Well, about a week ago I called Vought industry to see if I could intern for them as a superhero. I doubted anything would come from it, but then I got a call from them to come in and meet at their headquarters in New York City. So, that is how I got here.


	3. Interning for the 7

I drove over to Vought headquarters bright and early. After arriving there I was directed to meet with Queen Maeve herself. She greeted me kindly and said to me,

“Hi there James, it seems like you’ll be working with me for the next year.”

“It’s an honor to meet you Queen Maeve. It’ll be a pleasure interning for you. If you need anything at all, just tell me and I’ll be there.”

“Well you’ll mostly just be shadowing me on patrols and working with others, doing busy work like fetching drinks for me and the team, and maybe helping direct civilians in case of an emergency.”

“Ok, so should I start now”

“Yes, let’s begin.”

For the rest of the day I mostly followed Queen Maeve around doing whatever she needed. I brought her drinks, I delivered messages for her, and I basically just helped wherever I could.

This pattern continued for the next week before anything exciting happened, with a few exception. The first really exciting thing that happened was meeting Homelander himself. I only met him for a few minutes but the leader of the 7 was just how I imagined he would be very heroic and very inspiring. I later went on to meet the rest of the 7 from The Deep to Black Noir. These meetings were also only in passing, unfortunately, and by meetings I really mean seeing them walk past me in the hallway, but they all looked very heroic. Except for maybe Black Noir, he creeped me out a little.

Well, back to what happened a week into my internship with Queen Maeve. It turned out that the 7 was getting a new member. Maeve told me that her name was Starlight and she was going to be introduced to the world today.

I was given permission by Queen Maeve to go to the ceremony where Starlight would be introduced to the world. So that’s where I am right now standing at the front of a giant crowd watching Starlight introduce herself.

Starlight seemed to be very excited to be here joining the 7, as she rightly should be. Hearing her speak, she sounded like she would make a great addition to the 7. She sounded very genuine, like she wanted to, and was ready to go out and save some lives. She would most likely never be on the level of Queen Maeve of course, but that may just be my personal bias speaking.

After the ceremony I went back to meet up with Queen Maeve. I went over to her office to find it empty. Deciding to clean the place up while I waited for her I began putting away some files and emptying out her trash can. Just when I was finishing up Queen Maeve came in.

I stood up straighter and went over to greet her properly. “Queen Maeve, it’s great to see you. Where have you been, your usually in the office by now?”

Queen Maeve looked at me for a second appearing startled and then responded, “ Oh, I was just greeting the new member of the team.” She seemed grim for a moment, but then went back to acting like normal. I decided that I had probably just imagined it.

She then asked me, “So, what did you think of her?”

I took a moment to think a response and then said, “She seemed really genuine, like she was ready to go out and save the world. Not as great as you, of course, but she seemed like she would make a great addition to the 7”.

“I happen to agree, she’ll sell very well to the populace.”

I was a little confused on the way she phrases that, but just took her to mean that she liked Starlight.

I ended that conversation by saying, “Well, hopefully I’ll get to meet her in person one day.”

The rest of that day was business as usual until I was about to go home and Queen Maeve asked me if I would like to start training with her. I was stunned for a moment, and then enthusiastically agreed. This was the whole reason why I came to Vought in the first place, to train with my powers and learn how to be a superhero.


	4. Training

I lean over to turn off the alarm clock on my phone only to miss it. Then I turn on the bedside lamp and look over for my phone only to find it way on the other side of my nightstand. I stand up and walk over to turn it off. For a second I am confused, and then I remember why my alarm is so far away, I didn't want to be late for today's training.

I quickly start to get ready for the day, I brush my teeth and get dressed in my regular clothes like I have for the last week. But today I bring my portable super suit with me. In other words, I bring my briefcase full of metal that I can manipulate into transforming into a suit of bullet proof, full body armor.

After I'm completely ready I rush over to my car and drive over to Vought. By the time I get there I'm about 30 minutes early and Queen Maeve hasn't arrived yet. So I decide to start helping out some of the other workers while I wait. I delivered some messages for them and helped them fill out some paperwork.

Finally, after what seems like forever Queen Maeve arrived. I went up to her, very nervously and asked, "Um, we'll be training today right?"

She responded by grinning and then saying, "Somebody seems excited. Yes, we'll begin training now. Follow me, we'll be going to my private gym."

She starts leading me over to a the elevator and clicks on a floor that I had never been on before. When the elevator opened it revealed a giant room with a fighting ring in the center. Looking around, I saw weapon racks around the fighting ring.

Queen Maeve then walked over to the center of the ring and called out to me, " Ok, we'll fight until either knockout or when you first tap out."

"What, right now?

"Yes right now, I want to see what you're capable of."

"Um should I change into my costume?

"No, I want to fight you with no costume or powers first. There may come a time where you will need to go hand to hand with an enemy without your steel armor to protect you."

"Ok."

I nervously stepped into the ring. I thought to my self "Ok James you can do this, it's just like fighting at the jujitsu club, you've done it a thousand times before. Except this is Queen Maeve and not your instructor. Ok calm down James and just do your best. No, do better then your best, you got this James, your are the man, you are a beast just waiting to be unleashed."

When Queen Maeve said start I stepped forward after psyching myself up and was about to attack when Maeve stepped forward and the next thing I know is the mat. Standing up a little dazed I look around only to see Queen Maeve standing there looking like she is waiting for me to attack.

"Ok James, you got this" I quickly mumbled to myself. I ran at her at went for a kick only to once again be knocked to the floor.

This pattern continued for quite some time before Queen Maeve said we were done. So, lying on the ground exhausted and very nervous I asked, "So, how did I do?".

Queen Maeve responded by saying, " I expected you to be a lot worse so not bad."

I took this to mean that I had done great and cheered silently in my head.

Maeve continued "We'll start doing this every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from now on unless something comes up. We will continue to work on your unarmed and armed fighting ability every Monday and Friday as they clearly need a lot of work. But every Wednesday I'll take you out to work on your powers".

I felt too much joy for a moment and actually jumped up cheered out, "Wahoo". I then collapsed from exhaustion again. After doing some cool down stretches with Queen Maeve for a few minutes I asked her, "How did you take me down so easily? I mean I know you are better than me but you totally destroyed me in the ring."

She responded by saying, "You seem to be forgetting a few things, I have super strength and durability while you, well you don't. While you aren't a bad fighter, not at all, you just haven't ever fought against someone who is that much stronger than you."

This got me thinking for a moment and then I realized that what she was saying was true. I had never really fought someone much stronger than me. After having this realization I got much more excited to start fighting and training with my powers.

We then left the gym after cleaning up and showering. After this we continued on with the rest of the day. I did my usual work as an intern shadowing Queen Maeve around when she was at the company headquarters. Later, when she was about to go on patrol she said that if my powers are up to snuff, I may be able to start helping her out on her superhero duties soon. She said she would be testing me later this week to see if I was ready to start going out with her.

Maeve then left the room only to hear my call of joy. She looked back into the room only to see me covering my mouth with my hands. After she walked away I cheered again, only a lot quieter.


	5. The Test

Driving over to Vought I kept thinking, today is the day. Today is the day where I'll see if I'm going to become a proper superhero for Vought, or if I'm just not ready. Entering the building I kept psyching myself up, mumbling to myself, "I'm ready for this, I got this".

When I met up with Queen Maeve she directed me to her car and told me she would be driving us to the location for today's test. She told me that the test was going to be a test mission and left it at that. When we arrived she told me to suit up. I pulled out my briefcase and inside that briefcase was a large block of steel. As soon as I opened the briefcase I manipulated the metal inside to shape it into a full body metal suit of armor. It covered my whole body, in the shape of a super suit, it was sleek, and silver, not leaving much to the imagination. It looked good while also providing a lot of protection. After being fully armored I walked over to Queen Maeve who was standing outside of a gate for an abandoned warehouse.

Queen Maeve turned to me and said, "Ok, inside of this warehouse is a group of people from the Sinaloa Cartel group. They have been kidnapping women off the streets and drugging them up to get them addicted to cocaine and other such drugs. After they've become addicted, they'll force them into becoming prostitutes, basically sex slaves, and they will comply so they can get their next fix of such drugs."

I was horrified to hear all of this was happening right in the middle of the United States. You know how you hear about all of these crimes happening, but they are only statistics you hear on the news, and then to hear that they are happening right in this building, I was getting angry.

Maeve then continued speaking, " We are here right now to stop this group. Well more like you are going to be stopping this group. While I will be right out here just in case of an emergency. If you need me, just call out for help. Any questions?"

I froze for a moment to process all of this. I was going to be taking out that group of criminals all on my own. I knew that I would be doing this one day, but the fact that this was happening right here and now scared me. I took a deep breath to calm down and then said, "No, no questions."

I walked straight inside the gate and then started jogging towards the door to the warehouse. There were two guards that started calling out for me to stop. When I didn't they started shooting at me with what looked like fully automatic AK-47s. The bullets bounced off of my armor, not slowing me down at all. I ran straight into the guards and punched one of them, knocking him out, and then grabbed the other and threw him into the wall. 

Then I ran over to the door and found it to be locked with a metal chain. Using my powers, I manipulated the chain to come undone and then opened the door. I was immediately greeted with a large host of gun fire. I then used my powers to pull all of the guns towards me and out of the hands of the criminals. After that I started running towards them, taking them out one after another. Right after knocking the last criminal through a window in the warehouse, I looked into the room to see a row of barely clothed women in chains. It took me a second before I realized what they were doing here. I then used my powers to unlock the chains they were stuck in and walked towards them to calm them down. 

They backed away from me as I walked closer to them. I then realized that I might have looked more than a little bit terrifying to the obviously traumatized women. I stopped for a moment and then used my powers to lower my mask. I then continued walking towards them slowly whispering what I thought would be comforting words towards them, "It's okay, the criminals have been taken care of. My name is, well I don't have a superhero name yet but I work for Vought."

I put my mask back on for safety with my powers and as the women started to calm down I was able to start directing them out of the warehouse. As I walked out of the warehouse, leading the women to safety, I started to hear and see flashes of light. Then I saw all of the reporters standing outside. I quickly directed the women over to the police before pausing to look over at the spectacle that was going on.

I looked over and saw Queen Maeve standing there talking to the group of reporters. "Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to the new superhero Metallic. He has the power to control the magnetic field, in other words, he can control all metals. He will be my first apprentice, and the first apprentice that has ever been had by one of the members of the 7, and who knows, he may become a member of a 7 in the future if there are any openings in the future. Unfortunately we don't currently have any vacancies on the team currently."

"I guess I have a name now", I thought to myself.

Maeve directed me to stand next to her, "Metallic here will now be helping me in most matters related to the 7, such as on missions. Ok, do you have any questions for me or Metallic."

The first reporter called upon asked, "Will you be keeping a secret identity?"

I turned to look over at Queen Maeve, silently asking how I should respond. She whispered in my ear, "Secret identities don't last long, just answer with who you are."

I then used my powers to lower my mask and then called out to the crowd, "Hi there, my name is James Powers, I'm 18 years old, and as Queen Maeve has just said I will be, how should I put this, apprenticing under Queen Maeve. My superhero name is Metallic, as my current mentor has put it. Any more questions?" I was terrified on the inside but I tried to speak as confidently as possible.

The reporters looked over at the new superheroes features, he wasn't overly tall about 5'8. They could see his muscles through his armor, while he wasn't overly buff, he was very toned. He had brown curly hair, and sharp brown eyes.

We then continued to speak to the reporters, answering most of their questions for another, it felt like, 30 minutes. After that I left with Queen Maeve and went back to Vought with her and we started talking on the drive over.

"You did good Metallic, you saved the women without a single casualty and charmed the reporters. Your young, handsome, and seemed confident to the people."

I beamed on the inside, "Thank you, to be honest I was terrified when I entered that building. I was even more scared when those reporters started asking questions."

"Well you did well, though it took a little longer than it should have to take care of everyone, you passed the test."

For a second I was confused on what she meant, but then I remembered that this whole thing was supposed to be a test. Then, after processing what she had said I realized that I would be working with Queen Maeve out in the field. Then, joy began to rise within me after processing this.

"Thank you for believing in me Queen Maeve. I'll make sure to not disappoint you."

Queen Maeve smiled at me and then we parked at Vought headquarters. 


	6. Things Change

As I walked into the building, I received a lot of pats on the back, and people telling me good job. I realized that I had walked into the building still wearing my costume. This had caused everyone to recognize me, I also remembered that I had just told everyone my identity so that was no longer a secret. I panicked for a moment and then remembered that I had already talked about this with my family and that they said they would be ok with my identity being revealed so that was one worry off of my plate.

After that I took off my costume and was then introduced to some new duties. Apparently, I had to manage my pr or public relations so Vought introduced me to a public relations manager who would help me manage my image. I had to make a new Twitter, Facebook, and an Instagram account that would all be used to promote my image. My new pr manager, Spencer would mostly be taking care of all of that.

Other than that, I would be working with Queen Maeve on most of her missions from now on. This was, of course, the most exciting part of all of this. The fact that I would be an actual superhero from now on was amazing to me. When I finally got some free time away from everyone, I decided to call my family to let them know how everything was going.

"Hi Dad"

"James, I just saw the news, it looks like you're becoming a success."

"Yea, everything has been going amazing, I get to train with Queen Maeve every week, and I'm going to be able to start going out on patrol next week.

"Well that sounds amazing, just be careful and make sure to call whenever you can, bye James, Love you."

"Bye Dad, love you."

After that conversation with my Dad, and having similar talks with my Mom and sister, I went about the rest of my day assured that everything was going well.

After that phone call Queen Maeve came over and told me that I would be meeting with the 7 today. This both surprised and excited me, I would actually be meeting the 7, not just passing by them in the hallway. This would also be my chance to meet Starlight in person.

I quickly followed Maeve over to the meeting room. I walked in and Maeve directed me to sit down next to her, so I quickly did. I then looked around to see most of the 7 sitting down next to each other. The only one I didn't see was Starlight. 

So, I was getting to meet 6 of the 7, still the coolest moment of my life. Everyone was silent for a moment and I stayed quiet too, not sure if I should say anything, so I decided to wait until I was spoken to. The moment of silence quickly passed when Starlight walked into the room and everyone looked over at her. She was quickly greeted by The Deep who called out that he was wondering if she was ever going to show up.

After a short moment of conversation occurring Homelander spoke, "Well I'm sure everyone has noticed we have a new addition to the room other than Starlight. If you haven't already heard, Queen Maeve has gotten herself something of an apprentice. Young Metallic over there is going to be working under Maeve so please try to make him feel welcome."

Stargirl quickly responded by saying, "Well it looks like I'm not the only new person here, it's nice to meet you".

The others also went on to give me some type of greeting, thought Black Noirs greeting was a short nod that left me a little unsettled. I quickly said, "thank you, it's a pleasure to be here, and I will make sure to help in any way I can."

I stayed silent for the rest of the meeting as the 7 talked about how their ratings have gone up and many other such topics. While this wasn't what I expected to be spoken about, I figured that these were topics that had to be discussed at some points. I expect that the 7 talked about more serious topics during other meetings.

After leaving the meeting with Queen Maeve I began to follow her to her office when she stopped me in the middle of the hallway. "Metallic, you've had a long day. I'm giving you permission to go home and rest for the rest of the day."

I paused for a moment unsure, and then responded, "Are you sure?" I hadn't really taken a break since I started apprenticing for Queen Maeve.

"Yes, I'm sure." 

"Ok, if you need anything at all, call me. Have a good day."

I then proceeded to walk out to the entrance of the building and then bumped into someone on the way out of the building.

"Oops, sorry there."

"Oh, it's no problem." 

I looked over to see the brown-haired man I had bumped into passing by me. I then continued on my way home. After getting home I did a short workout and then went to sleep.


	7. The Gala

I arrived at Vought expecting to more of the usual everyday stuff I have done in the past. But unexpectedly things started to change. I started to get assigned more and more work alone. I wasn't just carrying around messages anymore, I was being given paperwork that I needed to fill out for my copyright purposes for my image. I quickly began to realize that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I can fight and I am pretty smart, but I had just graduated from high school. I wasn't very educated on contract laws and other such things so I began to look into what I should do to fix this unfortunate lack of knowledge on my part.

I wasn't sure where to start looking to fix this so I did what I had done in the past when I wasn't sure what to do; I called my parents asking me for help. The solution that they suggested was to find a lawyer and, with how much money it looked like I was going to be making in the future, that seemed like the prudent thing to do. The problem was I had no idea on how to go about hiring a lawyer, so I went to where I usually go to fix any ignorance that I discover outside of my parents, the internet.

I quickly found a website for a law firm that deals with copyright and finance law. After checking out how highly rated they were I decided to call them and make an appointment. They quickly acquiesced and I scheduled an appointment with them for tomorrow. So, after doing all of that I thanked all of the Vought employees for their time, but told them that I would not be signing anything before having a lawyer look over everything. I quickly said that I would have someone available to look over these documents within the week and that I should have it all filled out within that time frame. I went on to say, "Look everyone, I'm 18 years old and have never needed to sign a serious contract in my life. I just want to have a lawyer advise me so I don't accidently make a mistake filling out the paperwork or sign something that I really shouldn't have."

After that was sorted out, I basically had nothing to do for the rest of the day. So I just went over to see if Queen Maeve needed any help. After going to her office I asked if she needed anything. Queen Maeve looked over startled then responded by saying, "Oh Metallic, I was just about to go looking for you. There's a gala going on this afternoon that is very important to Vought industries. This party will be used to help get Vought into the military."

I paused for a moment thinking about what she just said and then responded by stating, "Wait, Vought is trying to get into the military. That can't be too difficult to achieve, I'd think that the militaries would be all over having supers in their service."

Queen Maeve responded, "You'd think so, but many leaders of the military have stocks in private arms corporations that make them lots of money. So if Vought is brought into the military to fight wars for America, then the arms suppliers would lose their government contracts, causing them to lose a lot of money, which in turn would cause a lot of the military leaders to lose a lot of money. Another reason why they are reluctant to let Vought take care of foreign conflicts is that it would mean giving a lot of power over to Vought and it would mean privatizing war and they are very reluctant to do that. There are a lot of other reasons why they are reluctant, but those are the main ones. "

I took a moment to absorb all of the information that she had just given me and had to admit that all of it made a lot of sense. For a second I was even confused on why we wanted into the military in the first place, so I asked, "Why do we want into the military in the first place?"

She responded quickly, "Well for a number of reasons, we would get those government contracts instead of the arms manufacturers making us a lot of money. We would also be able to take care of foreign enemies much more easily than the armed forces."

This explained that rather easily to me. I wondered why I was ever confused in the first place. So, I quickly acquiesced and said that I would be at the gala. Right as I was about to leave, I quickly remembered to ask some pretty important questions, "Quick question, what should I wear, where will the gala be, and when is it?"

Queen Maeve looked amused at the questions and quickly answered that I should wear my costume to dazzle the senators, and to just meet her at her office in an hour and she would take me to the gala.

Nodding in response I left the room, only to discover that I still had nothing to do for the next hour. Deciding that this would be a good time to get a workout in I quickly headed to the gym that Queen Maeve had been training me in. I found a treadmill in the room and decided to go for a run. I ran for a short amount of time, only running about 5 miles in 30 minutes, and then quickly cleaned myself up. By the time I was done I noticed that almost an hour had passed, so I quickly opened the suitcase that I carry with me everywhere and then suited up. 

After meeting up with Queen Maeve she directed me to the elevator and took me to another floor that I had never been on. The floor with the gala was very large and impressive looking. After a moment of just looking around Queen Maeve walked off to talk to someone important looking and told me to mingle. 

So, having never been to a party like this I just decided to get some food and try and find someone to talk to. After grabbing a plate, I noticed that there were a lot of people looking at me and I decided I should introduce myself. Quickly walking over to one nice looking man in a suit I reached out my hand and said, "Hi there, I'm Metallic the uhh apprentice to Queen Maeve over there or you can think of me as the new guy to Vought industries. You probably haven't heard of me, I'm pretty new."

The man in front of me shook my hand rather firmly and said, "Oh yes I've hear of you, my name's Senator Lockland. It's a pleasure to meet you. I saw you on the news the other day, how you took out that group of drug dealers, good job. Of course, news of your debut was kind of overshadowed by Starlight's unveiling to the world. You seemed to have done a good job though kid, good luck."

He the proceeded to walk off, so I went on and had many other such brief conversations. I talked about many topics, ranging from politics, to Starlight's unveiling, people asked a lot of questions about her for which I unfortunately didn't have many answers. I told those asking that I didn't know anything that they hadn't already heard. I had only met her once in person, and briefly at that. 

The guests of the party also asked about my apprenticeship under Queen Maeve. They asked question such as what is she like as a teacher, what have I done working with her, and have I met Homelander. To answer those question I responded that Queen Maeve is a good, but demanding teacher in hand to hand combat, that I have only gone on the one mission with her so far, but I will be going on far more in the future, and that yes, I have met Homelander and he seemed to be a great guy so far.

One last thing that I was asked was about endorsing many different things, such as their campaigns, and or products. I refused as nicely as possible, telling them that I was working on hiring a lawyer who would know more about this topic then me, but until I have one under my service, I won't sign or endorse anything. This did make those who asked slightly unhappy, but since I was still relatively unknown none were overly persistent.

The party continued along this vein and I quickly started to become tired of all of this talk. One thing that did occur was getting to meet Madelyn Stillwell. I was called over to meet with her when she looked to be talking to a high ranked senator, "Metallic come over here please." I was excited to be meeting her in person for the first time. Queen Maeve had told me about her, the person who basically manages the 7. I was told that the only reason that I hadn't met her yet was because she had been pretty busy due to Starlight's induction into the 7.

"Hello Metallic, it's a pleasure to finally be able to meet you. I would like to introduce to you a chairman of the senate."

I quickly reached out to shake his hand and said, "Senator, its an honor to meet you." I was trying to act as respectful as possible, not only was this a very seemingly important senator, but I was basically in front of my boss. 

"Metallic, I've heard about you. You can control metal right."

"Yes sir, anything that is effected by the electromagnetic field is under my control, which in easier terms means that I can control metal."

Stillwell jumped in and said, "Well Metallic, I was just telling the senator here how much the superheroes at Vought could help the US military in foreign engagements, why don't you explain some of the things you could do to help in any military situation."

I paused for a moment to think about this and remembered what Maeve had told me, that the whole point of this gala was to help Vought get the military contract that they needed. So, after gathering my thoughts for a moment I responded, "Well senator, as I can control metal I could stop any bullets from hitting our armed forces in case of an engagement. I could sense the locations and disarm any thing such as bombs or landmines. If you needed me to, I could tank pretty much any weapons due to the armor I am sure you have noticed I am wearing. I made this suit with my powers so it is pretty tough, when I am wearing the full thing, with the helmet and all, I am pretty impervious to most things such as RPG's machine guns, and other such things. Using this suit, I can also fly as I can lift the metal of the suit and, well fly.

The senator and Stillwell both looked very impressed by the list of things that I could do, but Stillwell quickly asked, "Well what could you do if a nuke was sent to the great US of A."

"Well, if I couldn't take out the jet or launchpad before it could fire, redirect redirect any missiles or bombs that are sent after us by taking control of them in the air and either disarming them or redirecting them back at their sender. That is, if Homelander hadn't already solved the situation by then." I laughed nervously.

They both laughed politely and after a moment of silence I took this as my que to leave, "Well senator, Mrs. Stillwell, it was an honor meeting you both."

I then walked off to hear them both continuing to converse. With nothing else to do, and seeing Queen Maeve not talking to anyone, I decided to walk over to her and start a conversation. "Hey, Queen Maeve, good to see you."

"Metallic, how have you enjoyed the party?"

"Well, it's sure been something."

Queen Maeve looked at me knowingly and said, "It takes some getting used to but you will unfortunately be going to a lot of these in the future. As part of Vought, your job will not only be to save people, but to increase the popularity and income of Vought industries."

I was a little bit annoyed that this would become a common thing but decided that if this was all that it took to become a superhero than so be it. If I have to go to some boring galas every once in a while, to help the company that is making it possible for me to go out and save lives, then it will have been well worth it.

Queen Maeve and me continued to converse for a little while before the party began to end. After saying goodbye to Queen Maeve, a few senators, and Madelyn Stillwell I headed home.


	8. Starlight’s Scandal

After waking I drove to work only to hear on the radio something about Starlight beating up some innocent men. I was, admittedly confused about this, but I figured that it was best not to speculate yet, as I have heard many stories where the media twisted the narrative, only for something to be uncovered that causes the whole story that they were selling to become debunked.

Arriving at work I decided to talk to Queen Maeve about the story, only to discover that she didn't know anything more than I did. She told me that if I wanted to know more, than I should just ask Starlight. But before I could do that Maeve told me that we had a mission today. 

This was quite exciting to me but I was getting a little more used to this so I didn't cheer loudly, on the outside at least. On the inside though, there was a little party going on. I quickly responded as calmly and confidently as I could, "So, what's the mission?"

She then told me that today we would be going to do something very important for Vought, and left it at that. Maeve then directed me to follow her to her car and suit up. I quickly did, and then thought about why I wasn't already wearing my suit. I was now a superhero and I didn't have a secret identity, so why wasn't I wearing my suit all the time. It wasn't exactly uncomfortable, ever since I had gotten that skin tight under suit from Vought, I was extremely comfortable being wrapped in metal pretty much all day. I also noticed that none of the other heroes seemed to wear normal clothes, they were always suited up. I then decided that from now on I would always wear my super suit as I liked to call it.

After this little moment of deliberation that occurred while Maeve drove us somewhere I noticed that the car had stopped. I looked outside only to notice that we were outside of what appeared to be a hospital. I quickly started to get worked up, was someone committing a crime at a hospital, what kind of horrible person would do such a thing.

Maeve, noticing that I seemed to be getting worked up, put her hand on my shoulder and quickly decided to explain what we were doing at a hospital. "Metallic, we aren't here to stop some bad guys, we're here for something just as important in a lot of ways. We are here to meet some child cancer patients and try to give them some hope. We also want to get your name out there as a nice guy. That seems to be what your brand will be, the powerful yet nice guy who has made it big."

I calmed down as I listened to her explanation. While I thought it was a little cheap to use kids to help my brand, I figured that it didn't matter overly much as long as I was still helping people, these kids included would be helped as I would be bringing awareness to their issues, and this could in turn hopefully bring in a lot of money and help for them.

So that's basically what I did all day, playing with the kids in my costume, floating toys for them and making them little sculptures of metal. This was all recorded and by the reporters, who were hidden so they would not get in the way of the event. Afterwards I went out to the reporters to answer any questions asked, with Maeve directing me in how to talk with the reporters beforehand. What questions to answer directly, and what questions to give vague, non answers to. Such as when I was asked how I thought of Starlight beating up two innocent men in an alley. I responded by saying, "While this does sounds like something that should be condemned, I don't know the full story, and neither do you. When this has been fully investigated, and the truth has been fully revealed, then, and only then, will I respond to these allegations."

After all of this, when I was done for the day, I left to go to the law firm for my appointment. I drove over to the address I was given and whistled impressed. The building was large and extremely modern seeming. I walked into the room and noticed I was getting a lot of weird looks. This confused me for a moment until I remembered that I was still wearing my costume. Thinking to myself I realized that I should probably start getting used to this. After meeting with the employee at the front desk, and surprisingly getting asked for my autograph and signing it, I was directed on where to meet with a lawyer. 

I walked into the room I was directed to and looked over to who would be helping with all of this confusion. Going up to him we shook hands and I got a good look at the man. He was about 6 feet tall and had a bit of a belly, he was also balding but his eyes were where I focused. They were blue and extremely sharp, the handshake he gave me was also very firm. So, began discussing the issues I had been having, from how to copyright my image, what part of my profits would Vought get, and other such details. I also gave him all of the contracts that were given to me so we could go over them together.

We worked together for over two hour, until finally all of the paperwork had been gone over and we had divided the contracts into piles, acceptable and unacceptable. The unacceptable pile was contracts that were completely unacceptable. Examples of this were contracts where Vought would have complete control of my image, up to and including making movies about me without my permission, designing my costume without my say so, they would also make all of the money from any and all merchandise made in my image. While I would still be making a ton of money, I wasn't sure if that was ok and the lawyer told me that I shouldn't accept this. I decided that I would sign all of these contracts after talking with Vought and making them aware that as long as I had the final say so in my image, then we wouldn't have any problems. If they didn't accept that then I wouldn't sign anything. After we were done going through it all I thanked God that I had decided to have an expert look over all of this before I signed anything. 

After going over everything with the contract lawyer, I decided to hire him on the spot. That is how I got the lawyer Howard Mikel on my payroll. I was a little nervous at first if I would be able to afford having such an expensive lawyer but he showed me that I would be making a lot of money soon. When I got my first paycheck next week from Vought, and I got all of the copyrights filled out, and merchandise starts being sold, I will have plenty of money. Still, I tried to stay conservative with my money, as right now I still haven't made any solid money, I was basically promising the lawyer an IOU.

So, that is how today went, it was extremely busy. I got to meet with and hopefully comfort some children and make people aware of the difficulties that these young children go through and get donations for them. I also finally got a lawyer on my payroll to help me handle all of the contracts that I have been having to go through. So with all of the paperwork having gone through, I should be making a lot of money soon, which is a big bonus.


	9. Starlight’s Stardom and the Race

I woke up, quickly put on my body suit and then my super suit over it, the steel armor. I had decided that this would be what I would be wearing daily from now on. 

On my way to work I heard over the radio something about Starlight being a hero for saving some girl. This confused me as just yesterday everyone was condemning her for hurting two innocent men, but I decided that this was just the usual media at work.

After arriving at work, I quickly asked one of the workers here at Vought what was going on with Starlight. The employee, Ashly Barrett, quietly squealed in joy, and told me that it turned out Starlight had saved some girl from being raped by those two so called innocent men and that today the girl had come forward after seeing the video of Starlight beating up those men to tell the truth of the event, that Starlight had saved her.

I processed this for a moment and then decided that this was definitely good news. I was happy that it turned out Starlight wasn't a bad person. I was also happy that I hadn't condemned Starlight yesterday to the reporters.

I decided that I would congratulate Starlight on being found to have not done anything wrong, unfortunately she was in a meeting when I finally found out where she was and I had to go. I got was about to go to my car when I decided that I would just fly over. Oh, where am I going you ask? Well, today there is a race going on between A Train, a member of the 7 and another speedster to see who is the fastest. My role today would be to do two things, one, construct the stadium in front of the audience to wow them. The second thing I would be doing today would be to just sign autographs and take pictures with some fans.

So, I lift off into the air and then right when I'm above the landing strip a shoot down into the superhero pose, one knee on the ground and then rise up to face the fans. Cheers greet me, and I noticed that I was the first superhero to arrive. Before I could do anything else I am directed to the middle of the track so I can construct the stadium. In the center of the track are four large slabs of metal and a blueprint of the bleachers that I would be constructing. I studied the blueprints for a moment before closing my eyes to focus on the image of what I wanted the metal to be. 

There was silence for a moment as everyone watched, and then I started to move my arms, and the metal moved with me, the metal began to take shape before everyone's eyes. Then, after just a few moments, the large bleachers were formed. Everyone was quiet for a moment and then everyone cheered, amazed at the show they were just give. I was tired but when a microphone was shoved in my face I smiled and responded as I was told to, "Thank you for coming everyone. Today, we'll be having a race between Shockwave and our very own A Train. I wish them both good luck." I then quickly started to leave the track when I heard a loud crash and noticed everyone was cheering again. I looked over and I saw that Homelander had arrived, and so I started cheering with everyone else. 

As everyone started to sit down went over to where I was told I would be introduced. Walking over next to Starlight I said, "Hi, it's great to see you again. I heard that it was revealed that you were saving some girls from some rapists. Congratulations, it's great that the truth came out!"

Starlight looked over to me and smiled, "Thank you." Before she could say anything else, we were called to go out to greet everyone. As we walked out, I heard over the microphone "Introducing the newest member of the 7 Starlight, and accompanying her are Queen Maeve's new apprentice Metallic, and Black Noir."

After that introduction I was assigned to autograph duty along with Starlight. While I was sitting there I had a continuous line of people coming in for autographs and selfies with me. But while my line was long, it was nowhere near the length of Starlight's fans asking for autographs. I continued to greet people for quite some time. I noticed about halfway through the time allocated for the autograph session, about 30 minutes in, that Starlight wasn't in the room any longer. When I went to ask where she was, I was told that she just went out for some air. Well, not being busy at all, I just continued to sign autographs and take pictures for another 30 minutes. What was cool though was all of the fans that came to get Starlight's autograph came over to get my autograph instead, which was totally awesome.

After I was done with giving out autographs, and taking photos with the fans, I was finally able to go home and rest. On my way home I realized that with how busy today had been I had totally forgot to talk about the Vought contracts with anyone. So, I quickly turned around in midflight, and flew over to Vought headquarters.

Walking over to the office of Madelyn Stillwell I knocked on the door and heard a call to come in. Quickly doing so I walked in front of her desk and proceeded to greet her. "Good evening Mrs. Stillwell".

"Good evening Metallic, what can I do for you?"

She seemed to be in a grim mood, but I made sure not to question it, not wanting to put her in a worse mood. "Well, I'm not sure if you've heard, but I recently got all of the contracts I was supposed to sign looked over by a lawyer because, as I'm sure you can guess, I know very little about contracts."

Stillwell looked very irritated for a moment and then motioned for me to go on, "So the lawyer told me that what the contract means is that I would have basically no control of my image for the next 5 years, and no offense to Vought, but I would like to at least have the final say in things like my costume and other such things. Other than that I saw no problems in any of the contracts and am ready to sign if just that is changed."

Stillwell took a second to process this statement, and then, seemingly relieved said, "That will be fine, let me just have someone rewrite the contracts and they will be sent to you tomorrow to fill out and that should be that."

I let out a breath I hadn't even realized I was holding, "Thank you Mrs. Stillwell. If you need anything at, call me and I'll see what I can do."

She looked at me for a moment and then said, "I'll make sure to do so". I was then sent on my way.

As I left the building and flew home, I thought to myself how lucky I was. I've got the greatest job in the world, I'll be making a ton of money, and my boss was nice enough to rework the contract so I will have some control of my image. Life is great.


	10. Saving a Plane

The day started like any other, I flew over to work and started filling out the contracts that were given to me almost as soon as I entered the building. This took me almost an hour just to finish them. By the time I was done it was lunch time and I decided that I would eat with Queen Maeve if I could find her.

After asking around I found that she was in a meeting with Madelyn Stillwell. Deciding to see if she was still busy, I went to Stillwell's office and after knocking entered the office. "Metallic, what are you doing here?" asked Stillwell. I looked around the office to find both Queen Maeve and Homelander in the office with Stillwell. I quickly responded with, "Oh, I was just looking for Maeve, I was going to ask if she was busy and wanted to have lunch. But I can see your busy."

About to leave the office I was stopped by Queen Maeve, "wait, Metallic might actually be able to help with this mission."

I perked up, "Mission, what mission?"

Stillwell looked over at Queen Maeve and asked, "Are you sure?"

Maeve looked a little uncertain but replied, "Maybe, lets ask him?"

I looked around a little confusingly, "Ask him? Ask me what?"

Stillwell looked at me and said, "A US airliner has been taken over by terrorists. I figure, who better to save them then the 7. Also, if the 7 save the plane then no one is going to argue against introducing our supers into the military."

I processed this statement for a moment and then said, "Ok, so we're going to be saving an airplane."

Stillwell quickly interrupted, "This is going to be a very important mission, there can be no failures. Are you prepared for this?"

After a moment of silence, I responded, "Yea, no problem, and if anything goes wrong, well a plane is basically just a large chunk of metal, my specialty."

Stillwell looked at me searchingly and then said, "Ok, you’re on the mission, as long as Homelander has no problems with this."

Homelander, who had remained largely silent until now responded by saying, "No problems here, if he thinks he can help great, and if Queen Maeve over here is vouching for him then even better."

The next 15 minutes were spent filling me in on what was going on and finding the location of the captive airliner. We then all rushed out to save the plane, with me and Homelander flying of our own power, and Homelander carrying Queen Maeve.

After entering the plane Homelander proceeded to take out the terrorist in the passenger side of the plane. Homelander then started calming down the passengers saying, "It's all over everything is fine." We then all moved to the front of the plane to find one captain dead and the other with a gun being held up to his head by another terrorist. After Homelander tried to calm him down, the man shot the captain and Homelander then proceeded to kill him with his heat vision unfortunately damaging the plane.

I started to silently freak out for a moment as the plane started to fall in altitude rapidly. As my panic began to rise, I heard Homelander and Maeve talking, saying that there was no way to save the plane, saying that they were going to have to abandon the passengers. Hearing this, I stopped feeling sorry for myself and tried to think of a solution. I tried to control the plane with my powers but the only thing I could do was slow it down not stop it or change the direction it was flying. I then heard Homelander say that there was no way that he could stop the plane in midair. This got me thinking, what if instead of stopping it, we angled it so it could land, not smoothly, but stably enough so that the passengers would survive. I could slow it down enough so if it hit the water the passengers would survive, and Homelander could move the wings of the plane and angle it so it can land smoothly.

I quickly ran over to Homelander and Queen Maeve and told them my plan. Maeve looked hopeful while Homelander looked contemplative for a moment. I then heard him mumble to himself, "Even if the plan fails, we can make it sound like the terrorists destroyed the plane steering and we did our best to save it but failed because we were not warned about this before by the military." I was horrified to hear him say this but I figured we had bigger things to worry about at the moment. 

So, after Homelander agreed to attempt my, admittedly crazy plan, I went over to the pilot seat of the plane, after pushing the pilot out of the seat and began to focus. First, I began to try and stop the plane, but I quickly noticed, as I thought, that that was impossible to do. Maybe if the plane wasn't falling at hundreds of miles per hour, I could lift it, but while it was, there was no way. So, I started to work according to the plan, I tried to slow the plane down as much as possible but then I noticed that it was still pointing much too directly towards the ocean. Right as I was about to panic, I noticed the plane start to level off, I looked out the window to see Homelander manually turning the wings of the plane so it was more level.

After about 5 more panic filled minutes, I heard a loud thump. I opened my eyes, which had been closed so I could focus, and noticed that the plane was in the water. I walked over to the passenger section of the plane to see everyone still alive. I quickly cheered in delight, "WOOHOO," and then the passengers, also taking note that they were still alive started celebrating with me. I quickly noticed that the plane was sinking though and decided to do something about it. After noticing land close by I quickly closed my eyes and lowered my hands towards the bottom of the plane and focused. Everyone fell silent for a moment, unsure of what I was doing, until they noticed that the plane was starting to move. Slowly at first, until the momentum built up and then the plane was gliding through the water towards land.

When the plane buckled for a moment, I noticed that we had reached land. As I started walking to the exit of the plane, I received many a thank you and congratulations from the passengers. Leaving the plane, I realized that I had never felt as fulfilled as I did at that moment. When we got to the beach later and the reporters started to arrive, Homelander started giving a speech. In this speech he basically said that today could have been a tragedy if we hadn't been able to make it in time to save the plane, and if it had been up to congress, we wouldn't have come at all. He urged the people to force their congressmen to sign a bill letting super heroes into the military. I was barely able to listen to the speech at this point due to my exhaustion. 

Sitting on the sand Queen Maeve came up to me and congratulated me on a job well done. She also asked, " Hey, are you going to be able to make it back to Vought on your own." 

I tiredly responded, "I don't think so, if I start flying now, I might just fall asleep in the air." She then called Stillwell, who was able to fly a helicopter over to where we were. As soon as I sat down in the helicopter the lights went out.


	11. The Aftermath and the Believe Expo

I woke up to find myself laying on a couch somewhere that I had never seen before. Standing up carefully and alert, when I heard foot steps behind me I rapidly turned to face whoever was approaching me only to see Queen Maeve who then said to me, "Oh good, you're awake." Seeing how I was slightly confused Maeve continued, "You're at my house, after the mission yesterday you fell asleep on the helicopter ride back to New York. I carried you over here as I didn't know where you live."

That answered that question. I went to reply, "Oh, um thanks for letting me stay over here for the night." I looked down and realized that I was still in costume, and then smelled myself and gagged a little. I stank, "Um, quick question, could I borrow your shower." She acquiesced and I quickly cleaned myself up and then, after thanking Queen Maeve again I went straight back to Vought for work.

After arriving at work I was told that I would be going to a press release with Homelander and Queen Maeve. When we went outside to speak with the reporters, we were greeted with cheers as we stepped outside. Homelander was given a mike and he talked about how many lives were saved because we had intervened in what should have been a military matter, and how many more could be saved if Vought were let into private defense. I was also asked a few questions while there, such as my part in the crisis as I was seen there. I answered as accurately as I could, and painted Vought in as good a light as possible. 

When it was all over I saw Homelander going off to speak with Queen Maeve, since they seemed to be busy I decided that this would be a good time to speak with a couple of my new lawyers about a few contracts that I was asked about that would include posters of me, and a few about having action figures made out of me. This, I realized, was when I would start making the big bucks. After going over the contracts with them, and making sure there wasn't any legal loopholes in them, I signed the deals that got me $500,000 in my bank account immediately and would give me 5% of all profits from future products sold.

After receiving this much money I decided the prudent thing to do would be to buy a house, well, more like a mansion, as I continued to think about it. I have been meaning to move out of the hotel for quite some time. But before I could think any further along this vein of thought I heard Homelander walk into the office that I was currently working in. He said, "Metallic, good to see you. I don't know if you've heard, but Starlight and me are going to the Believe expo and we are both going to be giving speeches. I was wondering if you wanted to go."

I was speechless for a moment before I responded, "The believe expo, isn't that thing really religious? No offense, but I'm not overly religious, I mean I believe in God and everything, but I never go to church or anything like that. I don't want to offend anybody."

Homelander quickly said, "Oh you don't have to be overly religious to go there. You can just enjoy the performance and see Starlight and me speak. So, you'll be there, great!"

He left before I could respond. I guess I'll be going to the Believe expo today.

I asked when it started and realized that it was starting in 5 minutes. "It would have been nice to know when it was starting Homelander", I complained to myself. I quickly left the building and flew out to the Believe expo. When I got there Homelander met me at the location that I had landed and patted me on the back, "Good, you're on time." 

No thanks to you I thought to myself annoyed.

But I followed Homelander to wherever he was going regardless. He walked into a tent and in there I was quite surprised to learn that he was going to be giving baptisms to the people there. I didn't even know that he was an ordained minister. Watching him give all those people baptisms was a little odd as I had never imagined him in such a religious position. 

After all of the baptisms were completed, I got to watch Homelander give a very rousing speech. calling out to the American values, saying that we supers need to be let into the military so those terrorists who attacked that plane never get the chance to attempt such a thing again. After he was done speaking the mike was unexpectedly placed in my hand and I was basically shoved onto the stage. 

So, unsure of what to do I started to speak whatever came to mind, "Well, I didn't know I would be speaking today, and after such a rousing speech, I'm sure whatever I say won't amount to much more than repeating what has already been said. So I'll just leave it at this, without the intervention of Vought industries in the recent crisis of the captured airliner, well, who knows what would have happened, and I don't want to know what would have happened, so lets make sure to get us Superheroes in the military so we can defend all of you from both domestic and foreign threats."

I received a small, polite applause from this, as I expected. I then walked off of the stage, smiling and waving to the crowd. Knowing that Starlight would be speaking next, I held off from leaving. What I heard next was very unexpected. I expected to hear a passionate speech on the merits of religion and being a good person, or something along those lines. What was actually said was basically that it was ok to not be perfectly religious. I also heard something along the lines of her being raped, which was very surprising. By the end of the speech I was more than a little stunned.

When she walked off, I wasn't sure what to do. After a moment I decided to go check and see if she was ok. I found her right outside of the expo hugging some guy. I coughed into my hand to get her attention, startling her and whoever she was hugging. I called out, "Hi there, it’s me Metallic. I was just coming over to see if you were ok."

Starlight quickly replied, "Oh yea I'm doing fine, great."

"Right" I said, "and this is" pointing towards who she had just been hugging.

"Oh right, this is" she paused for a moment, "my good friend Hughie Campbell, Hughie, this is Metallic."

Hughie looked at me and said, "A pleasure to meet you."

"Ok, well it looks like you are doing all right, so I'll leave you two alone. Have a good night." Turning to leave I paused, turned back and said, "Oh right, nice speech, much better than I was expecting." I then flew home and went to bed.


	12. The Calm Life

The day started a little differently than usual. I flew to work, but outside of the building I was ambushed by reporters asking questions about Starlight's speech last night. I tried to respond to the questions as well as I could. Saying things like Starlight has my best wishes and that I had no idea what she meant when she talked about being, well, raped.

That was basically the only exciting thing that happened that day, well, more like that month which was good as that meant I could finally work on buying myself an actual house. I met up with a realter and started looking at properties. After a few hours I finally managed to find a house that I really liked. It was three stories high, had 80 acres of property around it that I would own, and was in the middle of nowhere. The mansion was out of the city, had its own little lake on it, and was awesome. It was basically the world’s best mancave. The fact that I didn't have to worry about driving to work is the only reason I could get it. Flying has a way of taking care of those minor problems. I also called in some people to install a well and some solar panels on the roof of the house so it would be totally self-sustaining.

Moving into the place was as amazing as I thought it would be. I called up my family to tell them about it and my dad was a little jealous. We would always talk to each other about moving out into the middle of nowhere and living totally outside of civilization. Well, I had achieved that wish.

Other than the new house everything else on the personal front seemed to be going uphill, the money was finally starting to flow in. I now had two million dollars in my bank account. This was after buying the house. 

On the other fronts though, well, everything was not going so peachy. I haven't seen Translucent since our first meeting and no one will tell me anything about where he is. There have also been allegations that The Deep raped Starlight, which was more than a little bewildering considering the fact that the man was someone I had always looked up to. When he came out and basically admitted to the fact, well, I lost all of my respect for the man. He was later kicked off of the team, which means there was an opening on the board. Nothing has been said yet, but I'm thinking I might be let into the 7.

The only real thing I did this month, other than a few missions with Queen Maeve, which were awesome, was participate in what seemed to be a recording of our origin stories. Everyone on the 7 was doing them, and I guess since I'm Maeve's apprentice, that means I had to do one too. 

Making it wasn't too bad, I stayed pretty honest about my life story and what inspired me to become a superhero. What was nice about doing this is that it was shot in Texas where I met up with my parents and sister. They were also included in the documentary about my life. My life was basically aired on television, which luckily wasn't that bad. My life has been pretty secret and problem free as far as I can tell. This also seemed to relieve some of the people at Vought as they didn't have to, cover for me, as they put it.

So this month was pretty calm, I got a new man cave. I got a lot of money in the bank, I got to meet up with my family, and I have basically stabilized my work life by proving to be competent. Life was pretty perfect as far


	13. The Enemies

A meeting was being called today for the 7 and I thought that this might be it. Now that there was an opening I might be let into that elite club. As soon as I entered the room though I felt the somber atmosphere and immediately calmed down. This, I decided, was not the type of atmosphere of a group about to proudly welcome a new member into their midst. No, this was the mood of a people who had some very bad news. So, I decided to stay quiet until I figured out what was going on.

Homelander opened up the meeting in a very scarily calm manner. Saying how everyone has been off of their game lately, except for Black Noir, and me he points out. He says that there were only 5 members of the 7 left, and then puts up some images on the screen. I recognize the one of the images after a moment and point out, "Hey, isn't that that Hughie guy". I say this right after Starlight asks why a picture of Hughie was on the board. The people in the room look over to us and Queen Maeve asks who this Hughie guy was.

Homelander proceeded to explain that Hughie, Starlight's boyfriend, along with all of the other people shown on the board were responsible for the killing of Translucent, and the blackmail of many others. I was shocked for a moment. One, I hadn't even known that Translucent had been killed and two, I definitely wouldn't have thought he was killed by some random guy Starlight was dating. When A Train explained the guys motivation, the fact that he accidentally killed his girlfriend I found the guys motive to be a lot more understandable. I still didn't condone it of course, he killed a member of the 7 for nothing more than revenge, but I could definitely sympathize with the guy.

Homelander then went on to describe his thought process on how Hughie managed to accomplish all of this. He had help from Starlight. As I processed this for a moment, Queen Maeve came to Starlight's defense saying that she had just been used. I jumped in after her, trusting that if she believed Starlight to be innocent, then she most likely was and said, "Yea I mean, I can't imagine Starlight had anything to do with this."

So, Homelander let Starlight off with a warning. But before he closed the meeting he had one more announcement to make. "As we now have one more opening on the 7, and a perfectly able candidate right in front of us I'm going to be letting Metallic here join the 7."

I was stuck between being overcome with joy, and horrified at the conversation that we had just had about the murder of one of the 7 by Starlight's boyfriend. But I tried to sound as confident and upbeat as possible, "Thank you for this opportunity Homelander, I promise I won't let you down."

"You haven't yet, let's make sure to not start doing so now."

With this, the meeting closed and I started getting ready to announce my membership into the 7 to the world. I met with Stillwell after the meeting and she gave me a list of things I was to say to the reporters that I would be meeting with later that day. After looking over the list, I didn't see anything that I really objected to saying. 

Over the next few days, I began to prepare my speech and help get everything ready to announce my membership into the 7 to the world.

When the day arrived to give my speech to the world, I thought about how far I had come. I had started as just a regular high school graduate, albeit one with superpowers, and had then gone on to become Queen Maeve's apprentice. Now I was about to become one of the 7. I was amazed.

Waiting to be called on to speak I took a moment to appreciate how far I had come. Then, hearing my name called as a new member of the 7 I started walking out to greet the crowd of reporters on the same stage that Starlight was introduced. That moment then passed and I started to speak, "Hello everyone, as you've just heard, I will be joining the 7 due to the fact that The Deep has left the team." I made sure to not mention anything about Translucent yet as I was told that his death hasn't been made public yet. 

"I remember standing where you all are now, just a couple of months ago, watching as Starlight was introduced to the world. Now, here I am standing in the same place she was about to join the greatest team in the world. I'd just like to take a moment to let everyone know how grateful I am for being able to be here today. Without my family supporting me throughout my life I never would have made it this far. Without Queen Maeve choosing to let me apprentice under her, I definitely wouldn't have made it here, without Vought taking a chance on me, I would most certainly have not gotten to this point, and most importantly, without all of the support I have gotten from the everyday person out there I wouldn't be who I am today. So I'd like to thank all of my friends and for helping me get to this point and all of you for making it possible for me to become the superhero I currently am." 

I continued speaking for a while longer, talking about some of the missions I had gone on with Queen Maeve, and speaking of how I will continue to try and prove my worth to the 7 and to the world at large.

At the end of the speech I began to accept questions. 

"Metallic, how long have you known that you were going to be joining the 7?"

"Well, I just found out personally yesterday."

The questions continued for another 15 minutes and then I left and called my parents who congratulated me and wished me good luck.

I then flew home and took a well-deserved nap.


	14. Fighting Terrorists

Over the next few weeks, I started doing some real fighting. I would be flown over with soldiers into the middle east to fight terrorist groups like the Shining Light Liberation Front. It was more than a little horrifying to see the atrocities these so-called people did to their own citizens. Doing things like cutting off the limbs of children, and indoctrinating their people into being suicide bombers. I talked to my dad about this, he served in the military when he was younger and I wanted his advice on how to deal with this.

"James," he told me, "I never actually fought when I was in the service so I can't tell you exactly how to deal with this, but what I can tell you is that you are one of the few people really making a difference. You're out there taking the fight to them. Every time you take out one of those pieces of, well, you know, you are saving many more lives."

When I finally processed what he said I was reassured. This had mostly been along the same lines of what I had always thought but hearing it from my Dad made everything seem better.

So, I continued to fight the enemies and protect the US soldiers stationed there. Whenever I sensed a gun pointed towards the base, I was stationed at I manipulated the metal of the gun to wrap around the perpetrators wrist and then pull him towards me. The military got a lot of good information from these prisoners. When I was leading an attack, I would just pull all of the guns out of the enemies’ hands and have them wrap around their wrists, restraining them.

This method prevented me from accidently hurting innocent people, and it kept property damage very low. So, I was mostly liked by the citizens in all of the country's I visited. The people that I was capturing, or sometimes killing , were not very well liked. They stole from the populace, raped the women there, and made the young fight for them. If the people didn't comply then they were either killed, or worse.

After about a month overseas I finally came back to the US, having learned a little bit of the native language, which I would then go on to show off to my mom, who speaks like six languages fluently.

I met up with Stilwell and she told me that there would be a party celebrating our recent successes. When I walked into the room I was greeted with cheers. I smiled, waved, and thanked them all for the nice welcome. Recently, my popularity had seen a large surge upwards. This may be due to me posting pretty much everything I've been doing on Facebook. I've talked about the terrorist attacks that I've stopped before they even had a chance to start. I've talked about the leaders of many terrorist organizations that I've captured and what I've been doing to help the native of the countries I've been to. How I built many houses for those in need with my powers and many other such things that have been going on while I was overseas.

All of these things caused people to start noticing me more and more. After walking around and greeting the other party guests for a few minutes Homelander arrived, causing another round of cheers to start from the crowd, me included in this. I continued to walk around talking to people when I saw Starlight, looking extremely drunk and talking to some guy. I walked over, concerned and asked if she was alright. She looked at me seeming slightly dazed and responded that she was fine. She then asked to be excused and walked off. I started to follow her when I noticed she was going to the bathroom. Looking around I saw Queen Maeve and asked if she could check on Starlight, just to make sure she was ok.

Maeve left the bathroom a minute later and told me that Starlight was fine, just a little drunk. With that worry off of my shoulders I decided to mingle for a little longer. After a few more minutes I decided that it was time to go home.


	15. The Next Few Months

The next few months after the party were very busy. I was sent back overseas to continue fighting the terrorist groups that could be found all across the globe. As I continued to fight, my popularity continued to grow, which was awesome. This was mostly due to my continues social media posts about pretty much everything I was doing. I was as transparent as possible about everything that I was participating in and people seemed to like knowing what was going on.

I hadn't really been around the tower very often due to being deployed more than most of the others as I happened to be very useful in a warzone. I was bulletproof with my armor, I could stop bullets from hitting any of the soldiers, and I caused pretty much no collateral damage as I basically stopped the enemy solders with their own weapons. With all of these facts combined, well, I was a very useful person to have overseas.

When I finally got back from overseas, we held a funeral for Translucent. Vought wasn't perfectly honest about how he died, claiming he was killed fighting terrorists, but I figured that that description was close enough to the truth. The funeral was a very somber affair. One neat thing that happened was Starlight singing at the funeral, she was a very good singer. 

As I was leaving the funeral with Homelander and Starlight I was asked some questions about how I was coping. I responded by saying, "Well, I'll be honest, I didn't know the man very well but I am very sad that such a successful and well-loved hero died. My prayers are with his family."

Another reporter asked if I would be going back overseas again and I responded by saying, "I don't believe I will be for a while longer as I have been out of America for over two months with basically no breaks whatsoever. I'll be taking a little vacation here in America to relax and unwind."

That was about the end of that affair, I felt a little sad as I knew next to nothing about the man behind the mask.

The next few months after the party were very busy. I was sent back overseas to continue fighting the terrorist groups that could be found all across the globe. As I continued to fight, my popularity continued to grow, which was awesome. This was mostly due to my continues social media posts about pretty much everything I was doing. I was as transparent as possible about everything that I was participating in and people seemed to like knowing what was going on.

I hadn't really been around the tower very often due to being deployed more than most of the others as I happened to be very useful in a warzone. I was bulletproof with my armor, I could stop bullets from hitting any of the soldiers, and I caused pretty much no collateral damage as I basically stopped the enemy solders with their own weapons. With all of these facts combined, well, I was a very useful person to have overseas.

When I finally got back from overseas, we held a funeral for Translucent. Vought wasn't perfectly honest about how he died, claiming he was killed fighting terrorists, but I figured that that description was close enough to the truth. The funeral was a very somber affair. One neat thing that happened was Starlight singing at the funeral, she was a very good singer. 

As I was leaving the funeral with Homelander and Starlight I was asked some questions about how I was coping. I responded by saying, "Well, I'll be honest, I didn't know the man very well but I am very sad that such a successful and well-loved hero died. My prayers are with his family."

Another reporter asked if I would be going back overseas again and I responded by saying, "I don't believe I will be for a while longer as I have been out of America for over two months with basically no breaks whatsoever. I'll be taking a little vacation here in America to relax and unwind."

That was about the end of that affair, I felt a little sad as I knew next to nothing about the man behind the mask. 


	16. Stormfront

About a week after the funeral of Translucent I was sitting in bed relaxing at home watching the news when I learned that we had a new member to the team. I was very surprised to learn this from the news instead of being informed by someone from Vought themselves. I decided to fly to work today, even though I still had the next week off and introduce myself.

I asked around the building and found the location of Stormfront and then proceeded to introduce myself to her. "Hi there, it’s a pleasure to meet you. The name's Metallic, if you haven't already heard." Stormfront looked at me for a moment and seemed to approve. She smiled at me and responded, "It's nice to meet you to, I've already met all of the other members of the 7 so it’s nice to meet the last member."

"Yea sorry about that, I only heard about you joining the 7 today after watching the news. I'm not sure why I wasn't told informed earlier. That's the reason I came in today over my vacation time."

"I'm sorry that you weren't told about me joining earlier. My appointment on to the team was pretty sudden and was done by the president Edgar. In fact, not even Homelander was informed of my joining of the team beforehand."

I was quite shocked to hear this but after learning that not even Homelander knew about her joining beforehand most of my anger faded. "Well, that aside, since your the newest member after me, would you like a guide around the tower. I remember how easy it was to get lost when I first started working here."

She looked at me, seeming pleasantly surprised and responded with an affirmative. For the next hour I showed her all around the tower, from the gym to the gala rooms. As we talked, I found that she was a very passionate person, seeming very patriotic. I mentioned how my father had joined the military and was now a doctor, which was part of what inspired me to become a hero something which she seemed to approve of.

Stormfront talked a lot about social media, and noticing that I seemed to be very active online. I went on to say that I wanted to be very transparent about everything that I was doing, and the people seemed to appreciate and approve of it, which explained my sudden rise in popularity. I also asked about her social media use and she said she was a very active user, trying to get her message out to the public.

At the end of the tour we parted on good terms and I promised to watch some of her online videos, with her promising to do the same. Over the next few weeks, when my vacation ended we continued to talk whenever we ran into each other. While I still talked to Queen Maeve when I could she seemed pretty preoccupied so this didn't happen often.

So we continued to grow closer as we spent time together. This was amazing, I finally seemed to have a friend on the 7, or more like in this state. Ever since I moved over to the New York and joined the 7 I hadn't really made any friends. I mean I was friendly with Queen Maeve but she was more like my boss and mentor so not really a friend, and none of the other members of the 7 ever really interacted with me outside of missions. I also hadn't really made any friends at Vought as they never seemed interested in me as a person, only how much money I can make them, and I haven't been able to make any real friends outside of Vought as no one really treats me as just another human being. They see me as somehow above them. I talk to my family for friendly conversations when I can but they're in another state so that's not really something I can use for social interaction. Now that I had actually made a friend on the team, I was very happy. She also didn't seem that much older than myself, if they way she acts and uses the internet is anything to show for. I was actually kind of curious how old she was but it seemed like quite the unpolite question to ask.

One cool thing that we did do together whenever we found the time was make some videos together. They were usually pretty short videos, just having us saying hi to the public and explaining what we were currently doing. These videos were a big hit, getting millions of views.

Another thing that we started to do was spar together. It all started when I invited her to my house, and as we were talking she noticed that there was a lot of empty land around here, I responded, "Yea, it's awesome right, I own all the land around my house, there's 80 acres that I can do whatever she want with." She seemed impressed, or maybe that was just me projecting my desires onto her. She was the first person other than my family that I had invited over to my house, so I was trying to impress her. 

"So, you can do whatever you want on your land."

"Yea, sometimes I'll destroy a few trees and build something with my powers just because, oh wait I bet you'll love this." I then showed her a trail at the back of my house and after walking her to the end of the trail I showed her something that I had made with my powers. "This is my own little personal training arena, I made it with my powers, here I can practice with my powers without having to worry about hurting anyone." It was large, about three times the size of a football field and made completely of metal. It was sleek looking and completely awesome, or at least I thought so. Luckily Stormfront seemed to agree, walking around and nodding in approval. 

She then paused for a moment and said, "You can use your powers full out and there is no risk of accidently hurting someone, and can anyone see you?"

"No risk of hurting anyone as there is no one here to hurt." I paused for a moment kind of confused on the question but responded, "and yea, no one can see anything done out here, no cameras out here, and no one knows where this place is except, well you and my family. I paid a lot of money to make sure of that." I thought back to the amount of, well, bribes that I had to pay to confirm that the existence of my home address would stay totally anonymous. I didn't want any criminals to know where I lived, or worse, to have some fans or the paparazzi finding out where I slept. 

"Excellent", she responded. "James, how would you like to have a spar? It would be nice to fight against another super instead of just the common criminals we usually have to deal with." This question surprised me for a moment, and then I grew excited, wondering why this idea hadn't occurred to me. I hadn't really sparred against anyone in a long time. I had stopped sparring with Queen Maeve after I had joined the 7 for a couple of reasons. I had grown busy with my duties, and because she said that I didn't need any more training. Apparently, none of the other members of the 7 trained very often.

"I would love to", I responded excitedly. We then got into our respective sides of the ring to start, as we were already in costume. Then, after a count of three we both came after each other with a surprising amount of ferocity. This was the first time that I had ever really gone against another super with my powers. I had fought against Queen Maeve hand to hand, and eventually in my armor, but I never really fought with my powers. She shot me with lightning almost immediately which, luckily, I had seen coming as I shot some of my armor out in front of me and formed a metal shield in front of my body to protect me. I retaliated by shooting out forming spikes out of my armor and shooting them at her with the speed of a bullet. 

I wouldn't have done anything this lethal to her if she hadn't told me she could regenerate beforehand. 

This spat between us continued for a good while, and at the end we were both cut up and exhausted. But we both seemed extremely happy. It seems like I wasn't the only person who was lacking in opportunities to use their powers fully. 

So, this is how my meeting and continuing friendship with Stormfront went, pretty much the best thing that had happened to me since I joined the 7.


	17. Compound V

I just learned that I was going to be doing the coolest thing ever. I am going to be making a movie with the rest of the 7, it's going to be about the origins of the 7, it will be a pretty fictional movie about our origins, but still. While in the meeting room being told about this, I expressed my joy to the room by clapping when the guy giving us a summary for the movie finished his presentation. Only to realize that I was the only person in the room clapping aside from Ashley Barrett, Vice president of Hero management. I quickly stopped clapping as soon as I noticed this.

Stormfront also seemed to not like the script, adding that the script for the movie made the women out to be overly sexualized, well that's nicer than what she actually said, but anyways. Right after this Barrett commented that Homelander liked the script and Stormfront responded by asking where he was. This actually got me thinking for a bit, as I realized that I hadn't really seen Homelander at all lately. But before I could think too deeply about this Barrett seemed to freak out by a text she received and quickly left the room. After she left the room, Stormfront unloaded all of the changes she wanted for the script. 

As we were leaving the meeting room, I turned my phone back on only to see a notification from the news app I had. I checked out what new newsworthy thing had come out only to be very shocked to learn the source of my superpowers. I saw on the news that my powers were given to me by Vought industries through a drug known as Compound V.

I was shocked for a moment, and quickly left the building and flew home. As the wind flew by me, I started to calm down a bit and started to think rationally. If this is true, then my parents will most likely know the truth. So, when I finally landed at my house, after what felt like forever, I called my dad and demanded to know if he knew what was going on.

After a moment of silence, he responded, "James, yes we knew and consented to you being given superpowers. When your mother and I had you, we weren't nearly as successful as we are now, and I wanted you to have a better future for yourself. I was a teacher and your mother was working two jobs. So yes, I consented to you going through a safe procedure to get superpowers."

I then thought for a moment and decided that I couldn't really be mad at my parents, while I was a bit angry that they never told me about it, I could understand why they did what they did. I also couldn't argue with the results, I am after all a successful world class superhero. So, why would I be mad about it. Our conversation ended on a high note, with us both saying we loved each other and promising to visit each other.

The next day I was sitting in the meeting room with the rest of the 7 as the CEO of Vought told us that we needed to catch a super terrorist, or villain as Homelander put it, so we can change the narrative of the press and put Vought in a better light. I then just came out and asked, "OK, so I had no idea about any of this Compound V stuff until, well, all of this came out. Did anyone know about this or was I the only one in the dark?" 

A Train said, "We didn't know anything about this either." 

The CEO of Vought said that, "we are all victims here" implying that he didn't know anything about this either. Homelander then went on a rant saying that we, the 7 are a family and that we are not Vought. He was basically saying that we should leave Vought to clean up after themselves. I was not sure how I felt about that, I felt some loyalty to Vought, after all, without them I wouldn't have powers apparently, and without them I wouldn't have been able to become the superhero I am today. But, I decided to stay silent until everyone was leaving the room to chase after the supervillain that was on the loose.

As everyone left the room, and I was the last one in the office, I leaned over to the CEO as I walked out and said, "Vought has done a lot for me, so if you need any help, just ask and I'll try to be there." I left the room before I heard a response.

After arriving at the beach where the criminals were supposed to be at I was surprised to find The Deep waiting for us beside a dead whale. He said that they had gone into the storm drains. As the group divided trying to find them I tried to sense them, but couldn't locate them as I only sense metal, and there was to much metal around for me to only find things like the metal on their belts. So I spent the next like 10 minutes just wandering around the storm drains, looking for anybody, and not finding a soul. 

I eventually heard a crash and started chasing after the sound only to find a large hole in the drain with a car leaning into the drain. I quickly used my powers to move the car back and then flew out of the drain. As I flew out of there, I saw a large explosion and quickly used my powers to move all of the debris out of the way of the people. I then used my powers to start moving cars out of the way and saving the people under all of the debris. After saving as many as I could I flew up and saw Stormfront in front of the now dead superpowered terrorist talking to Homelander. 

I went over to them and called out, "Hey, are you guys ok. I saw all of those explosions going on and went to protect the civilians. I'm sorry for not helping out more but I figured that you could handle this guy while I protected the bystanders."

Stormfront quickly responded that she had taken care of the villain and that all was well. Homelander and Stormfront quickly left after that leaving me a little confused by their abruptness. After that I went back to trying to help as much as I could, I formed large metal shaped hands out of my powers and started moving all of the remaining debris out of the way. After working for a few hours, I was directed to go to a food drive to hand out food and water to those who were affected by the explosions caused by the terrorist. I helped for a few more hours, receiving many thank yous from the local population for my help before telling everyone that I was going home. I was exhausted after so many hours of work.

Before I went home, I was thanked on the news by Edgar, the CEO of Vought, for helping save all of those lives. This was after the thanks Stormfront received for killing the terrorist who caused all of the damage in the first place. I appreciated the thank you. Then, after Stormfront spoke a few word to the crowd, I went and said, "This has been a tragedy for all involved, and I don't want to see something like this happening again. So, I will be working overtime, with the support of all of you, to prevent any supervillains from doing something like this again."

I left the stage to some applause, and then, after saying goodbye to the other members of the 7, and CEO Edgar, I went home and got some well-deserved shut eye.


	18. The Week After

After the reveal of Compound V, and the defeat of the super terrorist. I started giving out a few interviews to help the people understand everything I knew about the situation. In these interviews I would talk about how shocked I was to learn about getting my powers from Vought, or some fringe group within the company. I would explain that even though this angered me at first, I quickly became grateful for it, because without this Compound V, I wouldn't have gotten my powers and been able to help so many people. So, even though my powers came from a possibly negative source, they had positive effects and I was grateful for them.

The other members of the group also gave out interviews, and I was very surprised to learn watching one of Queen Maeve's and Homelander talks that Queen Maeve was a lesbian. Another thing that I learned about was that A Train was being kicked off the team. I wasn't really sure why, but I knew that it was pretty much a settled fact.

Oh, one thing I did the week after the criminal defeat was visit my family. I flew out to see them all the way over in Texas so we could get everything out into the open. This was nice as I had a chance to relax, to be away from all of the reporters and get everything that was happening off of my chest. I left my family feeling a lot better about what was going on, the supervillains, the civilian deaths, everything.

After flying back to New York, I started filming the new movie with the rest of the 7. Even with all of the other depressing stuff that had been happening, this was still the coolest thing I had ever done, except maybe becoming a superhero. One horrifying thing that happened was when a video came out that Homelander had killed someone while trying to kill another terrorist. Apparently when he killed the target with his heat vision, the beam went straight through the target and hit an innocent civilian.

After filming one day I was eating lunch with Stormfront when we met Starlight's mother. As we were talking, she started to tell us about the problems she had been having with her daughter, how she hadn't forgiven her about lying about the source of her powers. Trying to console her I said, "I went through the same thing that Starlight is going through when I heard about all of this. I was mad at my parents for not telling me that my powers came from drugs instead of it coming from a miracle. But I then realized that if my parents hadn't done what they had, I wouldn't be where I am, and where I am is a pretty good place to be. I'm a superhero with the power to basically control metal, I can fly, and I have my own house due to my job. I'm living the dream, and if my parents hadn't consented to me getting superpowers, I wouldn't have any of this. Hopefully Starlight will realize the same thing that I did, that getting these powers were definitely a good thing, at least it has been for me."

When I finished saying this I noticed Starlight coming over. She quickly started trying to ask her mom to have this conversation with her in private. Noticing that the situation was getting awkward and very personal I said, "Well, this seems like a conversation that should be had in private. Mam, it was nice to meet you, and I hope everything between you and Starlight goes well." I then proceeded to leave.

As I was walking back to the set of the movie, I noticed Queen Maeve hugging another woman. I asked who the woman was and Maeve introduced me to her girlfriend. We got to talking and I learned that they had known each other for a long time. "It was nice to meet you, I've known Queen Maeve since I first joined Vought and she helped me get ready to join the 7. You're dating a great woman here, though I'm sure you already know that. Well, hope to see you later."

After leaving that day I finally got a chance to check my phone for the news only to see something more than a little shocking. Homelander had killed an innocent civilian while taking out a super terrorist. While I found this slightly understandable as there can be casualties when taking down enemies, I was still a little shocked to see this happening with Homelander himself. But I thought to myself, mistakes happen with everyone, and the more powerful you are, the larger your mistakes will be.

I started watching a rally on line protesting Vought when I saw Homelander fly in and interrupt the speaker. As I continued watching I noticed that Homelanders appearance seemed to have backfired on him. After watching this, I went home and decided to get some sleep. I was shocked from the events that had occurred that day and needed some rest.


	19. Meeting New People and the Court Case of the Century

As the weeks flew by, I started to notice Stormfront and Homelander growing closer. When I asked Stormfront, she told me that they were dating. While I told her I was happy for them I was actually a little disappointed. I hadn't considered asking her out or anything but now that she was dating someone, she would be spending all of he free time with him, and we wouldn't have much free time to hang out together.

I will admit, that I have been a little lonely lately. My only real friend on the team is pretty busy now, with doing all of her rallies condemning super terrorists, and the rest of her free time being taken up by Homelander. My family is in another state, and I was beginning to realize that I had no-one to talk to. I continued to do my own work, going on a few missions and just trying to stay busy when I decided that I need to make some new friends outside of my line of work. I figured the best way to do that was to join a running group and just start talking to people. That's what my dad did and it seemed to have worked out for him.

So, I started to go out and run every weekend with this running group I found on Garmin and we started to talk. After the runs I invited a few of them to go out and get some lunch together. One thing led to another and bam, I had made some new friends. They knew who I was of course, but these were smart people, some of them were doctors, lawyers, and one of the runners was even a governor so they didn't seem to have any problems talking with me, they were all used to meeting famous people, and being famous people themselves.

As I talked about everything that had gone on since I joined the 7 with them they decided to comment and express their views on everything that they now knew went on behind the scenes of Vought. They weren't really surprised by how much of our time was given to PR stunts and other such things, but they were surprised to learn how, well, dysfunctional our team was. 

They told me that usually coworkers will interact at least somewhat outside of the office, and the fact that I talked to pretty much none of the members of the 7 outside of work was kind of unusual, but not a unique situation. They told me that sometimes people at work are just fellow employees and not friends. I was told to not worry about it, that if they just want to remain professional, then there was nothing wrong with that.

After a few weeks of my new routine, running with my new friends and continuing my work, I was feeling better than ever. I was also starting to realize that this is what I had needed all along, an outside perspective.

One day though, after arriving at Vought for work as usual, I learned something that I was not expecting, Starlight was working with terrorists. To say I was shocked would be an understatement. I had known that she was having problems, it would be hard to not know that much having met her mother, but to think that she was working with terrorists! When later that day I was asked by reporters for comments on the news that Homelander had released I said, "I'll be honest here, I'm still extremely shocked to learn about this. I would like to believe that these allegations are false, but Starlight did admit to the 7 that she had once dated one of these criminals. I had assumed that she was being tricked and used, and had broken things off, but now, I don't know what to believe."

Still shocked about what had happened I went to talk to the other members of the 7 about what had happened, to see if they knew more details about everything that had happened with Starlight. As I walked over to Homelander and Stormfront, I saw them fly off to who knows where. So, after that I tried to talk to Maeve, only to not be able to find her. After not finding anyone on the 7 to talk to I decided to take this to the top, the CEO Edgar. I went up to his office and, after knocking on his door, I walked in after hearing a "come in". 

I stepped in front of Edgar's desk and after a moment of silence he said, "Metallic, what can I do for you.

I paused for a moment and then asked, "Edgar, sir, I'm here to ask, did Starlight really work with those terrorists. I'd ask Homelander or any other members of the 7 but I haven't been able to talk to them in private, and no one here at Vought will tell me anything, they either don't know, or won't tell me."

Edgar paused for a moment and then replied, "As far as I know, yes, Starlight did in fact work with those criminals to bring down Vought."

Processing these words, the shock and confusion started to leave me, being replaced by a feeling of betrayal. The fact that Starlight betrayed the team was angering. I asked, after processing what was said, "Is there anything you need me to do sir."

Edgar looked at me for a moment, seemingly searching my soul for a moment, and then, looking pleased at what he had found said, "No, nothing at the moment, just go home and rest for the day. Come back tomorrow for the hearing that will be taking place against Vought. We will need you there, you may be called to testify. I trust you will be speaking in favor of Vought."

"Of course, sir" I responded, while I wouldn't lie, I couldn't really think of anything really bad that Vought had done that every other company in the US wasn't doing.

I left that room feeling less confused, and more motivated to help Vought. The next day, as I walked into the court, I greeted reporters and answered a few questions saying, "I trust today's court hearing will prove that Vought hasn't done any corporate malfeasance or been involved in any felonies. I have been with Vought for about half a year now, and in all of that time I haven't seen evidence of any of these allegations. So, I will be very surprised to find any of these accusations proving to be true."

As I sat down in the court room next to a random stranger, dressed in my normal steel costume, without the helmet pulled over, I waited for the court proceedings to start. When it finally began, a witness was called in by the prosecutor, a Jonah Vogelbaum. He rolled in on a wheelchair and as he came in, I knew absolutely nothing about the man, other than the fact that he was apparently a former CSO of Vought, as told by the prosecutor. I leaned over and asked the man next to me if he knew anything about the man. He responded that he didn't know the man either.

I sat on the edge of my seat, waiting to hear the man’s testimony, and just as he was about to start making his opening statement, the judges head suddenly exploded. Then Vogelbaums head exploded. I quickly stood up panicked, and covered my head in steel, trying to protect myself. As everyone ran around panicking, more people started to explode. I tried looking for the perpetrator, only to find no one. I quickly started to help evacuate the room, calling everyone to follow me towards the exit. As everyone followed me and we left the room, I still found no evidence of the criminal behind this. After everything was over, I went home showered the blood off, and went to sleep, pretty horrified by everything that had happened that day.


	20. The Supervillain Threat

Over the next few weeks, the president initiated a state of emergency, bypassing the FDA, and making Compound V available to the police and soon ICE. None of this had happened yet, but it would be happening soon. To be honest, I had mixed feelings on this, on the one hand, with more people having superpowers, I probably won't be as important very soon, but with the police and proper authorities having superpowers, crime would probably drop, and people will be a lot safer as criminals will be apprehended much easier than ever before. This was also very much needed as somehow criminals seem to be getting access to Compound V and with them having access, then the regular police definitely needed some type of advantage to offset this, and giving them superpowers did seem like the best solutions.

I also started to do videos, along with the other remaining members of the 7 on what to do in case of a supervillain attack. Homelander did videos on what to do in case of an attack at a school, and I made videos and presentations on what to do in a hospital in case of an attack. We set up drills for the doctors to do if there is ever an attack. I also helped set up a few seminars with banks so they would have an idea of what to do in case of a supervillain trying to rob them. Cliché, I know, but with actual supervillains being a thing now, who knows what could happen.

Oh, another thing that happened, I learned that Homelander has a kid. I ran into him while he was being entertained by Ashley Barrett, Vice President of Hero Management, who looked like she was going to lose her mind trying to keep Ryan, the kid, entertained. While I was there, I figured I could help keep him happy. I quickly told Ashley, "Hey, I can watch Ryan here for you until Homelander gets back, you look pretty, uh, frazzled over there. Why don't you go and get some rest.”?

She quickly responded with an affirmative, looking very relieved. While I was there, I started entertaining him with a piece of steel, shaping it to look like Homelander standing next to the kid. He seemed to like that so I gave it to him, and right as I was about to show him a few more tricks with my powers Homelander walked in.

"Homelander" I called out, "it’s good to see you, and it was nice to meet your son Ryan here."

He looked a bit surprised to see me, "Metallic, what are you doing here?" 

"I was just walking over to talk to Ashley when I found her entertaining this little guy. She looked exhausted so I offered to look after him until you got here. We've been having a little fun over here waiting for you. I'll leave you on your own if you're ready to take him back, I've got some work to do. Ryan, it was nice to meet you. Bye Homelander, Stormfront."

With that I left the room after they had responded with their own greetings and good byes. 

Later that day, as I was walking through Vought, I saw a news update saying that Stormfront was a 100-year-old Nazi. I didn't believe it at first, I'd heard plenty of fake stories come out of the news before. I decided that I wouldn't make any solid choices on Stormfront until I was able to talk to her. 

Unfortunately, or fortunately I never got that chance. I learned that Stormfront had been killed by Queen Maeve and Starlight the very same day that it was revealed that she was a Nazi. We held a press conference soon after the reveal of Stormfronts background. In that conference, we told the public of the "capture" of Stormfront and how she was the real perpetrator to all of Starlight's crimes. Director Edgar then informed the public that he would be calling a halt to the release of Compound V for an indefinite amount of time. This both disappointed and gave me some reliefs I thought that this was needed to combat the growing threat of super villains, but I was also nervous as I thought that if Compound V became more widely used, the wrong people may get it, exasperating the growing number of supervillains.

As the conference came to a close, I came up to Homelander and said, "I'm sorry about what happened to Stormfront, I know you two were close." Even though she was a, well, Nazi I still considered her to be a friend. I felt betrayed that she had committed those crimes, but I wish that I had gotten the chance to talk to her about everything that had happened. Unfortunately, I would probably never know the full truth about Stormfront and her history.

Homelander just walked off after hearing my comments. I didn't take it personally, he was grieving. Then, I went home for the day, sad at the loss of a friend, angry at her betrayal, and so many other complex feelings that exhausted me. As soon as I hit the bed, I fell asleep instantly.


End file.
